Whole Life Carbon Assessment: Understanding Holistic Emissions Accounting

This session will build on the AIA Maine COTEs previous session on Upfront Carbon. AIA COTE CoChair, AIA Maine Strategic Council Representative, and OPAL Management Partner, Timothy Lock, will discuss a variety of existing emissions accounting frameworks, what portion of overall Whole Life Carbon these frameworks account for, and go in-depth in describing current best practices in Whole Life Carbon Assessment using the UK Royal Institute of Chartered Surveyors (RICS) Whole Life Carbon Assessment For The Built Environment (Global Edition, V3, August 2024). The session will consist of a 45-minute presentation with graphics and fifteen minutes of questions and answers.

The following learning objectives will be covered:

• Develop an understanding of key terms in emissions accounting for buildings such as, upfront carbon, life cycle assessment, whole life carbon assessment, time value of carbon, and how they relate to each other

• Learn proper steps and boundary definition when conducting building emissions accounting accurately

• Learn design approaches to achieve accountable decarbonization in the buildings we design

• Understand the hierarchical impacts of design choices during a conventional design process and how those choices relate to our current construction industry